New Delhi: The six private direct-to-home operators paid Rs 3.078 billion as licence fee to the government for the year 2011-12, compared to Rs 1.778 billion in 2010-11 and Rs 1.262 billion in 2009-10.

The revenue in 2008-09 was Rs 893 million from four operators, since both Airtel Digital TV (Bharti Telemedia Ltd.) as well as Videocon d2h (Bharat Business Channel Ltd.) had not commenced services.

The other DTH players are Dish TV, Tata Sky, Sun Direct TV, and Reliance Big TV.

Under DTH licensing norms, the platforms pay a non-refundable entry fee of Rs 100 million and an annual fee equivalent to 10 per cent of gross revenue every financial year. Thus, the platforms have paid Rs 600 million as one-time entry fee.

Interestingly, Tata Sky paid a licence fee of Rs 793 million in 2011-12 as against Airtel Digital’s Rs 618.7 million and Dish TV’s Rs 300 million. Sun Direct paid Rs 360 million, Reliance Big TV paid Rs 95 million, and Videocon d2h paid Rs 50 million.

DTH services are governed by the DTH Guidelines and terms and conditions issued by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry on 15 March 2001 and amended from time to time.

The seven DTH players in the country including Doordarshan’s free-to-air DD Direct Plus cover around 35 million TV homes.